


The sun will rise again

by LynyrdLionheart



Series: I Am Iron Man's Daughter [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 14:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3854026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynyrdLionheart/pseuds/LynyrdLionheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they wake up in the morning, they are SHIELD agents.  By that night, they are no one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The sun will rise again

**Author's Note:**

> And here we have the plot intersect with the TV show. Which I love.

They are in London, what’s meant to be an extended overseas mission, when MI6 agents appear at their hotel room and try to arrest them.

                Treason was the word thrown about.  Caroline and Enzo don’t stick around long enough to find out the details.  They leave their room and five unconscious agents behind.  Obviously the British intelligence agency wasn’t amongst those who got the memo about what they were capable of.  Or perhaps they did and still thought five agents would be sufficient.  Either way, they weren’t.

                No one is answering their calls – not Natasha, not Fury, they even try Barton – and Caroline isn’t fool enough to attempt to contact her father.  They’ll have him monitored.  She needs answers that only SHIELD can give her right now.

                The closest SHIELD location is the Fridge.  Neither of them particularly wants to go there.  It’s a prison, but it’s the most secure location they can reach easily, and it’s a place they know they can get answers.

                They fly to the fridge only to find that it’s the end of the world and all of the prisoners are escaping.

                “What the fuck?” Enzo demands, but Caroline has already leapt from the jet to land on the helipad.  One of the escapees sees her, but Caroline has been on enough missions, done this enough times, that she doesn’t hesitate to flash forward and snap the man’s neck.  She’s not here to save the prisoners of the fridge; they are the lowest of the low, and if she has to kill a few to find out what exactly is going on… well, the world will be better off without them. 

                “Be careful, Care,” Enzo’s voice comes over her comm, tinny and low.  She gives a wave back to him and the jet.  They’ve done this before – she’s better off sneaking in alone, because Enzo’s subterfuge ability is limited to hacking.  He’s as subtle as a bull in a china shop, and sneaking into the Fridge _will_ take subtlety.

                Or, it should.  But the SHIELD guards are dead, shot in the elevator, and Caroline feels a sinking in her stomach.

                “They’re out.  This whole place… someone has broken in, Enzo.”

                “Get out, Caroline.  We’ll regroup elsewhere.”

                Caroline considers it.  She knows that she shouldn’t go in like this, blind and alone… but they need answers like yesterday, and this is the best place to find them. 

                “No can do, Enzo.  Just keep the jet ready.  If I have to make a quick getaway, I want to be able to make a quick getaway.”

                She knows that Enzo probably argues, but she’s already switched her comm to mute, not wanting any sounds to draw attention to her.  She steps into the elevator and sends it down, hoping beyond hope that whatever is on the other side at the lower levels, she has time to react before they start shooting.  She doesn’t know the vent system in the Fridge, can’t use them efficiently without knowledge, so she’s going in blind and possibly head-on.

                Luck is with her.  No one stands on the other side when the door opens.  Caroline already has her gun in hand, the safety clicked off, and she keeps it in front of her, finger poised on the trigger.  She makes it halfway down a corridor when she hears voices.  Voices that, she realizes with a sinking feeling, are familiar.

                Her fears are proven true when Grant Ward and John Garrett walk around the corner.  They freeze when they see her, and Caroline tightens her fingers on the gun.  There are traitors in the house, traitors that she had looked up to.  Grant Ward was one of the agents whose career she tried to emulate.  Him and Melinda May and Natasha and even Barton; the best of the best, and one of them is a traitor.

                “Agent Forbes,” Garrett greets, his hand moving for his own gun. “Such a surprise.”

                “What’s going on?” she demands, her gaze never wavering from the pair.  “What are you two psychos doing?”

                “Well, that’s rude,” Garrett says with a sigh and a shake of his head.  “I was almost hoping you were one of us when I saw you, but I guess the daughter of an Avenger… not likely, right?  Oh well, Hail Hydra and all that.  Kill her.”

                Caroline’s mind is whirling at a mile a minute, because Hail Hydra?  What the hell?  Her gaze darts to Ward, because she assumes the order to kill was for him.

                Then she’s grabbed by the throat and tossed in the air.

                She whirls mid-flight to see her attacker.  A black man with a burned face that she doesn’t recognize.  He looks to be half robot, but Caroline knows as she begins to fall that she still has the upper hand.  Her vampirism is still a secret.  Enzo had whisked people out of a collapsing building in Chicago, but Fury had explained it away as a mutant gene, and no one had any proof of Caroline being anything other than a talented agent.  The truth of vampires was known by very few, and surely Garrett is not amongst them.

                “You might want a stake,” she hears him say, and she feels sick at the words, because there goes that idea.  “She’s a bit of a monster.”

                The black man prepares to hit her in mid-air, and Caroline catches his fist in her palms.  She lands on the ground and in a swift spin, she sends him flying over Garret and Ward’s head into the wall, finishing the manoeuvre crouched low to the floor, her fangs dropping as she faces the two traitors.  Ward pulls out his gun, aims it at her.

                “You have one shot, Ward,” she hisses.  “Better make it count.”

                The agent looks unsure, which makes Caroline smirk internally.  It’s one thing to be told a fellow agent is a vampire, but she and Enzo were both always careful to keep the full truth of their capabilities under wraps, and Caroline has experience being shot. 

                She moves at the same time Ward pulls the trigger.  She feels the bullet enter her shoulder at the same time she falls on him, her fangs coming out and digging into his neck.  She drinks deeply, the blood flooding her mouth.  She thinks that, maybe, she’ll drink him dry.  He’s a traitor… a member of Hydra?  And she needs more explanation for that, but first she needs to get away from here alive.

                The black man hits her like a freight train. 

                She’s separated from Ward and sent flying down the corridor.  Her back slams into the floor and she goes sliding several feet with a pained grunt.

                “Now that’s impressive,” Garrett says, looking at the black man with a look approaching pride.  For his part, the man’s expression is stoic and grumpy.  He doesn’t want to be there, but something has him striding down the hall toward her.  She flashes back to her feet and hisses at him.  He pauses, obviously taken aback by her fangs and dark eyes.

                “What are you?” he demands, standing utterly still.

                “I’m the monster under your bed,” Caroline replies, eyeing him for any obvious weaknesses.  “What are _you_?”

                The man is moving again, at a pace far too fast for a mortal.

                “I’m the monster monsters fear,” he replies, his fist coming back.  Caroline braces herself for the attack.

                Then another form flashes onto the man’s back, fangs dug deep into the man’s throat.  It’s Enzo, and he brings the black man to his knees. 

                “Run!” Enzo snarls, releasing the man and using him to kick off and back.  Caroline follows him.  Her eyes dart to Garrett and Ward’s prone body, but they’re both gone.  Garrett must have gotten both himself and the dead weight away while Caroline dealt with the lackey.  She mutters a curse.

                “We need to get to the jet before Ward and Garrett.”

                The elevator trip back up seems interminable, and when they get out they see the form of Garrett making his way to the jet, Ward supported between him and another man.

                “Do we kill them?” Enzo asked.

                “We just get the hell away,” Caroline replied.  “Killing them will take too long.”

                The look on Garrett’s face – anger and awe – is almost worth it, when they’re in the jet before he and his companions can make into another five steps.  He shoots at them as they leave, but the bullets bounce harmlessly off the side, and then they’re away again.

                Caroline has no idea where they will go.

SHIELD

                “They’ve been there all along.”

                Her father has managed to get a secure line so that Caroline can speak with Mariah Hill, who is his newest employee in security.  She’s speaking on the phone while Enzo works frantically on his laptop, wiping away any proof that they had ever existed.  His own identity was easy to erase – until joining SHIELD, there had been no records of his existence thanks to Augustine – but Caroline’s is a little tougher.  She had been very active in Mystic Falls, and erasing all signs of that takes time.  Time and a lot of cursing, if words coming out of Enzo’s mouth is anything to go on. 

                “How did no one know?” Caroline demands.  “How the hell did Hydra manage to hide away in SHIELD?”

                “No one was looking,” Hill replies simply.  “SHIELD was made on the ashes of Hydra’s defeat.  Why would we suspect to find them within?”

                “And now Fury is dead,” Caroline says, though she doesn’t believe a word she’s saying.  It would take more than a few Hydra grunts to take out Nick Fury, but Hill hums her agreement, sticking to her guns and her story.

                “Yes.  He’s dead and so is SHIELD.”

                And that is a blow to Caroline’s gut, because SHIELD is who she made herself into.  Without it, she doesn’t know who she is without it.  She burned her bridges to Mystic Falls and left it behind – she couldn’t go back to Elena Gilbert’s lackey, even if she wanted to – but she doesn’t want to follow in Hill’s shoes.  She doesn’t want to live in her father’s shadow any more than she wants to live in Elena’s.  SHIELD was what she chose, and she doesn’t know how to unchoose it.

                “How does it end like that?” she demands.  “What do we all do now?  SHIELD is Nat and Barton’s life even more than it is mine.  What about Steve?”

                “They have the Avengers,” Hill replies simply.  “You do, too.  You can come back here. Tony is hardly going to turn you or Enzo away.”

                “You know I can’t do that, Hill.  SHIELD is everything I made myself… without it, I just…”

                There’s a long pause on the other end of the line, then a heavy sigh.

                “Look, your father doesn’t know this yet… but Phil Coulson is alive.”

                Caroline’s eyes widen at the news.  Phil Coulson?  But he had died – killed by Loki on the Hellicarrier before the battle of New York.

                “Yes, he’s alive.  And he’s determined to make SHIELD survive.  I can put you in contact with Melinda May.  If you want to help recreate SHIELD, they’re your best bet.”

                Caroline feels relief course through her, because she remembers Phil.  She didn’t know him well; hardly ever spoke to him, really… but her father respected him, and so did Nick Fury, and if anyone will make SHIELD live on, it will be Coulson.

                She looks at Enzo, because while she is determined to make SHIELD remain her home, Enzo might not feel the same way.  He may want to find his own way, who he is without Augustine and without SHIELD.  He sees the look in her eyes, and he strides up to her determinedly, taking the phone out of her hand.

                “Tell us where to go, Hill.  We’re not letting this go without a fight.”

                Caroline’s answering smile is bright and brilliant.

SHIELD

                Grant Ward is once again the sight that greets Enzo when he enters the building that hides the Hydra incentives program.  He and Caroline had split up – her to follow Coulson to Garrett, and him to Melinda May and an agent named Skye who were more on the technology, and thus his, side of the equation.

                “You’re being rude to the girl, Ward.  That’s just bad manners.”

                Ward whirls around, his gun trained on Enzo’s head, and the girl who must be Skye watches them both with wide eyes.

                “You,” Ward hisses.  “Where’s your little blonde partner?”

                “Not here,” Enzo replies simply.  “Don’t tell me you’re still holding a grudge.  SHIELD or Hydra, none of you agents take being fed on well, do you?  It’s a character fault, it is.”

                He lets his fangs drop, his eyes darken, and Ward once again takes a step back, his finger on the trigger.

                “Holy shit,” Skye breathes, staring at him.  “Who the hell are you?  _What_ the hell are you?”

                “I’m Agent Enzo of SHIELD, darling.  And I’m here to help you out in whatever capacity you need.  Is May around? She should have been expecting us.”

                Enzo doesn’t remove his eyes from Ward, stepping slowly towards him.  Ward keeps his gaze on him, and Enzo simply smiles back, because May is already moving. 

                “You’re paying attention to the wrong weapon, mate,” Enzo says, and Skye smirks, realizing what he sees, what’s coming next.

                “We have a secret weapon that’s going to destroy you,” she adds, her smile saying that she was perfectly okay with that.

                “Really?” Ward mocks.  “And how do you know that?”

                “Cause you slept with her… and she is _really_ pissed.”

                Then May makes her move, taking Ward out with as smooth a move as Enzo has ever seen Caroline or the Widow use, and he leaves the two to fight it out, turning back to Skye who holds a weapon on a bound man.

                “So, is he a member of the incentives program?”

SHIELD

                Caroline is sneaking into Garrett’s base when she runs into Fury.

                “You’re dead,” she says, staring at him.

                “Obviously not,” Fury replies.  “Hill mentioned that you would be here.  I have to give you credit, Forbes, I wasn’t sure you’d have this level of loyalty.”

                “SHIELD taught me to be strong,” Caroline retorts simply.  “I won’t let Hydra spit on that.”

                “That’s what I like to hear.  Now, let’s get Phil and stop ourselves a crazy man.  Speaking of crazy… where’s that partner of yours.”

                “He went to help with tech.  Sneaky isn’t really his thing.”

                “You think?  I’ve seen bulls with more subtly than that boy.  Hell of a mind, though.  Did I ever tell you that he was one hell of a find?”

                “No,” Caroline responds, thinking that it would make Enzo proud, probably even preen, when she told him.  “But I know it anyway.”

                “Stark’s daughter through and through,” Fury mutters, but he doesn’t sound as upset by that as usual, and she knows it’s because right now, they can use that Stark arrogance, that utter inability to believe that she can lose.  Caroline, for her part, just smiles at him, her fangs dropping.  Today, they fight for SHIELD’s soul.  It’s no time to try and keep secrets or hold back.

                Garrett and every other traitor like him will fall, or Caroline will die trying to make sure it happens.  And Caroline has no plans to die.

                They hear the gunshots before they see Coulson.  He’s tossed at their feet, and when he sees Fury standing above him, his eyes spark with anger.

                “You and I are going to have words,” he states, and Fury nods his head, as though Coulson’s words hold no surprise for him.

                “Of course.  But not now.  You remember Caroline Forbes, don’t you, Coulson?  Agent Forbes, Phil Coulson.  I know you two met, but it was a while ago.”

                “Stark’s daughter,” Coulson says with dawning recognition, and though he’s one of the good guys, he’s still SHIELD, and Caroline sees the wheels turning behind his eyes, calculating how he can use Tony Stark’s vampire daughter to help save the day.

                “Agent Agent,” Caroline replies easily, because she remembers how her father would address the man in front of her.  But there’s something different about him, about the way he holds himself, the way he looks at Fury.  Coulson had been a loyal soldier to SHIELD – following protocol, never questioning authority – but she is not sure that’s still the case.  “My partner is with two of your agents.  May and Skye?”

                _“We’re looking for what Skye is calling an ace-in-hole.  Not sure what it is, but she seems certain it will give us the upper hand.  I’m impressed with this girl.  Do you think we can keep her?”_

Caroline rolls her eyes at Enzo’s voice in her ear.

                “She’s not ours to keep, Enzo,” she replies, a sigh in her voice, because this isn’t the first time Enzo has wanted to pick up a stray… or be picked up.  He still tries to convince Tony and Pepper to adopt him, despite being older than both of them.  She sees Coulson and Fury’s looks and shrugs.  “He likes your Agent Skye.”

                “He can’t have her,” Coulson says shortly, and Caroline bites back a smirk, because there are definite daddy vibes there, and she suddenly would very much like to meet this Skye.

                “So, do we have a plan?” Caroline asks as bullets continue to pepper the metal around them. She’s gotten used to be shot at, but that doesn’t mean she likes it anymore now than when she first joined SHIELD.

                “We give Garrett a punch in the teeth,” Fury replies, and he pulls out quite possibly the biggest gun Caroline’s seen.  “This packs a pretty big punch.”

                “I know what it does,” Coulson replies, taking the gun and powering it up, orange light beginning to glow along its length.  Caroline raises her brows at it, and grins a fanged grin that Coulson returns.  Though his lacks actual fangs, it holds plenty of metaphorical ones.

                The punch _is_ big, and Caroline finds herself very, _very_ glad not to be on the receiving end of it.  For the first time since she began going on missions, she finds herself simply standing back and enjoying watching Coulson destroy the Hydra goons.  When he turns the gun on Garrett, who is looking significantly more insane than he did the last time Caroline saw him when she fled the Fridge, she waits with baited breath to watch him get his just desserts.

                Knowing that he was a Hydra traitor and watching him get blasted back several feet for destroying the agency Caroline had come to count as an integral part of her new identity is incredibly sweet.

                Watching him get back to his feet laughing?  Not so much.

SHIELD

                _“Oh, shit.”_

The words make Enzo freeze.  Because Caroline sounds worried.  Only certain things make Caroline Forbes sound worried – Asgardian mischief Gods and caterers that cancel at the last minute being two examples – and today they don’t need worried.

                “What’s the matter, Gorgeous?” Enzo asks and Skye glances back at him.  They’re being lead to “the incentives program” and Enzo doesn’t want to let anyone not SHIELD and trusted know there might be issues.  Skye bites her lip in uncertainty, but continues on. 

                _“Garrett.  He’s like that dude back at the Fridge who, double oh shit, is here.  Things might get messy here, Enzo.”_

Enzo growls deep in his throat at that, because he is here and she is there, which means that he can’t have her back, is counting on Fury to have it instead.

                Enzo respects Fury, but he doesn’t trust him to have his partner’s back.

                “I can be there in twenty-”

                _“No.  If things go south, you’ll need to save as many as you can.  I have Fury and Coulson here with me, and they seem to have a plan.  Just… be safe, Geek.”_

Enzo growls again.

                “I’m not the one who needs to be safe.”

SHIELD

                “You told us, Nick.  A man can do anything once they realize they can be something bigger!”

                Caroline is pretty sure that her expression of bemused disbelief must match Fury and Coulson’s.  Garrett is a rambling mad man who claims to know all the secrets of the universe, and she’s pretty sure he got that speech wrong.  She has good memory, was always determined to be at the top of her class, and while she may not have always agreed with Fury’s words, she did make certain to pay close attention to them.

                “A _part_ of something bigger,” Fury replies, stressing the part.  “Don’t tell me this whole Hydra thing is because you messed up my damn one man speech!”

                “He doesn’t listen very well,” Coulson replies dryly, and Caroline has to bite back a laugh.  She knows she shouldn’t be laughing right now, but Fury and Coulson seem so at ease that it’s making her relax as well, and so she wants to laugh.

                “You got it, right?” Fury asks the both of them.

                “Oh yeah,” Coulson agrees while Caroline nods with what she hopes is a solemn expression.

                “Your time is done, Nick.  Yours and Phil’s.  You’re too set in your ways to see the new path that has to be taken, which is too bad.  I thought you of all people, Phil, would understand it.” Garrett turns his gaze, his mad, too-cheerful gaze, away from the men and onto Caroline.  “You’re still young.  You and that friend of yours. And you could be assets.  Just join us.”

                “Enzo is older than you are,” Caroline replies pertly.  “And I’m a Stark.  We don’t play well with megalomaniacs who aren’t related to us.”

                “That’s too bad, darling.  You could’ve been great” – Caroline bares her teeth at him, but inside she wonders why it’s always the evil ones who tell her she has potential.  Garrett bares his teeth right back, then looks at Deathlok – “shoot them.”

                Deathlok turns to them, lifting his arm and the gun attached to it and aims at them.  Caroline tenses, preparing to flash at him and take him out, but Coulson’s hand grips her wrist and she freezes.  She shoots a quick glance at him, but he just continues to watch Garrett and Deathlok.

                “You don’t want to do this, Mike,” he says, and it’s clear that there is some sort of history between him and Deathlok… or Mike… _whatever_ his name is.

                “I don’t have a choice, Coulson,” Mike replies, sighting down his arm.

                “Now would be a good time to let me go,” Caroline murmurs, but Coulson’s grip just tightens.

                Caroline is about to rip her arm away and attack whether or not Coulson approves when she hears it in her ear…

                _“Jackpot, Gorgeous.”_

At the same time Enzo speaks, Deathlok pivots and shoots Garrett right in the chest.  He goes flying back, and Deathlok follows him with a steady step.

                “C’mon Phil, Nick.  You’re not gonna let him do this, are you?  Princess there, you’re Stark’s daughter.  One of the good guys.  This isn’t good guy behaviour.”

                “We don’t control him,” Coulson replies with a shrug, and Deathlok punctuates the statement by stepping on Garrett’s head.  Caroline winces and turns her head away slightly, only to meet Coulson’s almost amused gaze.

                “I read your file.  I wouldn’t peg you as squeamish.”

                “I think I saw brain,” Caroline replies shortly, and she swears she hears Coulson chuckle as she walks away, already starting to talk to Enzo over the headphone, to find out exactly what caused Deathlok’s sudden change of loyalty.

SHIELD

                Fury has left and Caroline and Enzo sit with Coulson’s team – or at least what remains of it.  They are down a specialist in the form of Grant Ward, and their engineer is apparently injured critically.  Antoine Triplett has joined them, and Caroline remembers meeting him a couple of times.  Besides him, there is Melinda May – _the freaking Cavalry_ – Skye the hacker who Enzo has informed Caroline reminds him of her a bit, Gemma Simmons the biochemist, who is sitting on the edge of her seat practically vibrating with worry over the injured Leo Fitz who is apparently her best friend in the world.

                “What will you guys do now?” Skye asks them when the silence clearly becomes too much, and Caroline can see why Enzo might be reminded of her, as she had been about to comment on the weather.

                “I…” Caroline looks at Coulson who has entered the room.  “What is going to happen now?  With SHIELD?”

                “Fury made me the director,” Coulson replies.  “I know that the both of you would be welcomed by the Avengers, but we need all the people we can find, and with your unique abilities?  You’re assets I would very much like to keep.”

                Caroline looks to Enzo and once again he nods, just as he had when she had spoken with Hill.

                “We’re not Avengers, Sir.  We’re SHIELD.  That’s the decision we both made, and I don’t want to give that up.”

                “Then welcome to the team,” Coulson holds out his hand, and Caroline grasps it in a tight shake.  She looks him dead in the eye, and she remembers him from her time on the Helicarrier with the Avengers, and then seeing pictures of his dead body, and how sad her father had been when he had died.

                When Loki had killed him.

                She looks at him and thinks of how destroyed SHIELD is now, torn to the ground by betrayal and secrets, and here is a man who was killed by her very own secret.  She closes her eyes, and reaches back for Enzo, who reaches up and grasps her hand in return.  She doesn’t have to say a word for him to know that she is about to say the words she should have spoken months ago.

                “There have been too many lies in the agency, Sir, and it nearly destroyed it.  So for the sake of trust, I think it’s probably time for full disclosure.”

                “If she says she’s Hydra, I’m going to go ballistic,” Caroline hears Skye murmur, but her gaze is locked on Coulson who has a look of polite puzzlement on his face.

                “Agent Forbes?”

                Caroline takes a deep breath, and Enzo squeezes her hand in support.  She squeezes back, then finally, _finally_ , speaks the words.

                “Loki of Asgard is still alive.”


End file.
